Microsoft Security Initiatives in SP1 and SP2 - nothing but a complex toy? By Dennis Lundtoft Thomsen
I recently read Kevin Day's book " Inside a Security Mind " - not because I pretend or intend to be a security guru but because I'm aware of the fact...

Why Physical Security is Important
By Rodney Buike
Physical security of you server is an important, but often overlooked part of the entire security checklist. If unauthorized personnel gain access to the physical machine, game over. I have heard...

Adrian Beasley wrote a wonderful article on Certificate Server Enterprise Edition and Smartcards - I particularly like it as he explains WHY each component is required rather than just diving into the detail - which he makes an excellent job of too. ...

Nathan Winters
Introduction In the last few days this issue of time sync in Windows domains has come up a few times both at work and on the Minasi forum of which I am a member . Each time there has been confusion as to exactly how time sync occurs...

At the time of writing SQL Server 2008 is currently at the Community Technology Preview (CTP) stage. CTP 6 was delivered in February 2008 and includes a PowerShell provider. In this article I will explain what PowerShell is, why a PowerShell provider...

By Paul Vincent
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a tecchie.
There was a time (and it wasn’t that long ago!) when I could name and identify the function of pretty much every Group Policy Object setting in Windows XP.
However, Information Security is more...

Rodney Buike has written a detailed article about the importance of Physical security. I often talk about this topic myself as it's often depricated at the expense of the more technical aspects of security such as wireless, cryptography, biometrics et...

Brian Reid
Whilst working at a client doing some performance testing of an intranet, web-based, application we came across a little documented way to improve the network performance of the application if the web server is running IIS 6.0 on the Windows...

As you are aware the life of Exchange 5.5 is coming to an end. Consequently over the last 12 months more and more migrations from Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2003 have been embarked on. In actual fact Microsoft reported a third quarter revenue growth of...

Mark Arnold - MVP
Has this ever happened to you in a small business?
Your manager has come rushing in, in a blind panic. Nothing new there then but you feel you need to do something about it, since he’s gone purple and it wouldn’t look too good...

Matt's written an interesting article sharing his experience "from the coal face" gained during years of exerience advising the military and leading companies in writing more secure software. I share Matt's view that it's far less expensive to fix security...

Mark Wilson enjoyed a TechNet event so much he wrote an article all about it!
Most firewalls only inspect the packet header of each piece of traffic and ignore the payload itself. As Mark explains traffic that's destined for port 80 may not necessarily...

Andy Taylor
A few years ago I was working for a major UK outsourcing company and I was involved with a key account within large UK organisations. I was given a project to upgrade a customers McAfee virus scanner to CA’s eTrust version 6 (like I...

Microsoft Operations Manager
A Solution for the SME Managed Service Provider
Background
The expansion of broadband availability in the UK is having a significant impact on the complexity and penetration of IT systems and technology in the...

Blake Handler
Free Microsoft Support As a Microsoft consultant I’m pleased that practically every resource is available freely on Microsoft’s website. They provide many useful downloads & fun “goodies”, as well as their support information. Locating...

Blake has compiled an amazing collection of all of the support resources, newsgroups, how to articles, team blogs and tips and published it here ... This must have taken an amazing amount of time to review and research and is just about the most comprehensive...

I've been trying out some workstation deployment scenarios to see if it is possible to use Microsoft Automated Deployment Services (ADS) to deploy Windows XP.
Microsoft has a plethora of deployment solutions and the main one for workstation deployment...

Sender Policy Framework (SPF) is a type of DNS record created to help stop Spam. A lot of anti-spam filters include a filter to look for SPF records and if they are forged, block the messages. The easiest way to describe SPF is to call it a reverse MX...

David has written an article and discusses operational and business unit reporting within the realm of Exchange management reporting, with examples of Key Performance Indicators. He touches on solutions from Microsoft and Quest software which provide...

Brian Reid – C7 Solutions Ltd – 25 July 2005
Having recently obtained my first Windows Mobile powered SmartPhone, I needed to connect to my Exchange Server over the internet using ActiveSync. For those of you unfamiliar with Windows Mobile SmartPhones...

Let’s be honest - it can be frustrating and difficult to have conversations with users over things like report colour, graphics and so on. For some very bright technically-focused people, a real pain point is the ‘soft stuff’ regarding the presentation...

The other week I was asked by Colin Mackay of Scottish Developers to do a 15 minute talk on “What’s new in SQL Server 2008” for the Community Launch of Visual Studio 2008 and Windows 2008 in Glasgow. So I set about putting some slides together in Power...

The Pro’s and Con’s of System Lockdown
By Rodney Buike
Locking down desktops is becoming more and more prevalent in today’s corporate environment. Malware, viruses, malicious users and laws like SarbOx are putting the pressure on IT staff to remove...